237 comments:

I just watched the replay of the events on the news. Wow. It was like living it again. I wish I had words to express it.

I was a college student then. My history professor came into class that afternoon and simply said "I can't lecture today. This is going to be enormous. This will be bigger than Pearl Harbor. Things will never be the same. We can't have class today."

I remember that day. A couple of days earlier, I was playing with my new toy called the computer. I had the television on in the next room. After watching the television that morning, I started to look for a different perspective and discovered the world of blogs. I don't watch the news anymore.

They seem to have been wrong for the most part. Thank goodness. I think we had more to fear from ourselves than the terrorists.

Jason, I'm not sure. Different than Pearl Harbor, certainly. But not bigger? I don't know. By 9 years after Pearl Harbor, the threat was over and gone, and we had moved on. Today, it's still there. Another hit could come at any time, and we all know it.

Like I said, I don't know. I'm young, and it was certainly the most enormous event in my lifetime, and even my parents'. But the people who can remember both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 well are few and far between, and the world has changed so much in between. It changed my life, that I know for sure.

Another day to reflect on a media and President who spend more time and angst on a nut in Florida who wants to burn pieces of paper than to a Muslim Army Officer who hates America and slaughters his fellows on a nice day in Texas.

Almost Ali, thanks for that, it was lovely. The support of the Brits was one of the most striking things that I remember of that time. The idea of America needing the support, even if just emotional, had simply never occurred to me before then.

A few days after the attack, at their changing of the guard, they replaced their traditional "God Save the Queen" with "The Star Spangled Banner" in our honor. I wept.

I have a photo collage on my stairway wall which includes a photo of my kids, then 17 and 14 in front of the big sculpture in the plaza in between the towers. We visited on the weekend before Labor Day, 2001, early on a quiet Sunday morning, the first visit for my children. We took the ride to the top for the view.

I am still in disbelief that there is nothing there to replace them. We should have built replicas immediately. This would have done wonders for our national psyche, as well as making our collective worldview more confident. Now we are afraid of the consequences if a nut in Florida burns a book. (From what I understand, the "book" is no longer holy once defiled by a non-believer) They wouldn't threaten an America that put the towers right back where they were.

Sadly, there's no way to look at 9/11 as anything other than an anniversary of a massive defeat for the U.S. The enemy that perpetrated it has grown stronger in this country (which was their goal), nations around the world are siding with them against us and virtually all attempts to push back against the tide is de facto illegal for American citizens.To the leadership (and much of the population) of our country 9/11 has become a sick kind of Muslim Appreciation Day.

My history professor came into class that afternoon and simply said "I can't lecture today. This is going to be enormous. This will be bigger than Pearl Harbor.

I was at the office, south of the Pentagon. We had a Tv in our lobby. After the first plane went in, we were watching FNC. I saw the second plane strike live. I turned to a retired colonel co-worker and remarked:

We're at war. I don't know who with, but we're at war.

We could walk to the other side of the building and see smoke from the Pentagon. I wasn't working there that day.

so yeah, it was a Pearl Harbor moment for America.

as for the Brits? I had just gotten back in August from a short project in Hampshire, UK. For the next week, I kept getting calls from friends there expressing condolences. (retired Army types) Good guys.

Anyone just listen to Obama at the Pentagon bowing and scraping before the Muslim victors? He's a disgusting human being, as well as being the worst wartime President in history. How people still support this hateful worm is beyond me.

I remember the pall the events cast over that day. I was seeing patients and the news came in bits and pieces from the woman who was our medical record clerk. She was the only one who could play a radio at her work station. She would come in to the patient area to pick up charts and filing once every twenty minutes or so and drop pieces of news. Once she told us a plane had flown into the Pentagon, everything changed. Even the patient who came in seemed in shock. It was difficult to concentrate on minor illnesses with all that horror in the background.

And, like Allen S, after that, I discovered the world of blogs - and better news.

Libtard: Never forget. I mean, don't forget to bring your $225 to see Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck in Anchorage on 9/11 to honor the dead.

What Lileks has to say about Garage, et al:

"the same people were crowding the message boards of internet sites on the afternoon of the attacks, eager to blame everyone but the hijackers. They hate this nation. In their hearts, they hate humanity. They would rather cheer the perfect devils than come to the aid of a compromised angel. They can talk for hours about how wrong it was to kill babies, busboys, businessmen, receptionists, janitors, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers - and then they lean towards you, eyes wide, and they say the fatal word:

But.

And then you realize that the eulogy is just a preface. All that concern for the dead is nothing more than the knuckle-cracking of an organist who’s going to play an E minor chord until we all agree we had it coming."

Remembering images of the sneak attack in the Moslem's War to capture lower Manhattan is almost more than I can comprehend. But remembering the Pentagon strike is easier because my friend that is CO of the 48th Brigade Combat Team was at the site and pulled men and women from the flames that morning...and he knows that this War is about far more than the average Marxist Phd is willing to admit. Losing a War is a thousand times worse than whatever suffering it takes to win a war. But leadership is the key to victory. To honor the dead we must get Obama and his gang of saboteurs out of our Commander in Chief leadership role.

I remember the frightening effect 9/11 had on the young people. My nephew, then 12-years-old, called me moments after the first images began appearing on television. He wanted to know what was happening. I said we were under attack, despite the confusion and speculation streaming across our screens. And it was clear to me who was behind the attack.

A year earlier I had taken my nephew to the World Trade Center. We arrived on the observation deck just as the sun was setting, a stunning scene that will never be replicated. Even more surreal, we were the only ones there except for a few vendors cleaning and shuttering their stands.

Sitting there, still, our eyes mesmerized by the vivid images, we could feel the tower gently swaying in the wind. But now they sway no more, and I imagine those same vendors fell violently to earth while trying to earn a modest living.

My nephew used to call me every September 11th, and I may yet hear from him today. But he's far away, and I pray not too far away - off with other 12-year-olds who remember this day.

What the weeks after 9/11 showed me most clearly was that, while I'd always considered myself a liberalish sort of centrist, in truth the people who had considered my domestic allies were, in fact, filled with poison. It was like seeing friends pull masks off and reveal monsters underneath; people whom I'd previously respected and admired lined up to spew hateful and twisted anti-Americanisms.

I realized that while I'd always considered myself somewhat at home on the left, it was actually full of bigoted juveniles, people like GM, Jeremy, and Ritmo (I'm still not convinced α-lib is an actual person, rather than a propaganda-braying Perl 'bot).

I'd spent the '80s and '90s being repelled by the right; I've spent the past decade being repelled by the left as well.

You'd like to think that 9 years has been enough time for the moderate parts of Islam to have made some observable progress in purging out the immoderate. But no.---------------

No, in these 9 intervening years, an Imam and his corrupt cronies raised enough money to buy a property near Ground Zero (they would have bought one if one was available right on top of GZero) and started a plan for a massive Muslim mosque. And when asked for the rationale they were AWOL. Even the Muslims in NY were perplexed why there was not a cohesive and convincing defense/argument of why the Imam started this project at that location. In one NY Muslim supporter’s words, he supported the mosque but he was not going to carry water for the Imam. I think all this was a premeditated effort to cause what is exactly happening today. The more they show people protesting against ‘Islam’, these bastards, corrupt Muslim politicians, gain ground. That is their MO.

Is there such a thing as a free press somewhere in the Islamic world? Is there a pluralist newspaper somewhere in the Islamic world? Given that half of the population can't read, what does the other half read? Can they read western novels, or read our blogs?

Without literacy, I don't think anything like the truth can spread through Islamic societies. Is the army attempting to spread literacy on a global basis throughout Islam?

How many people in an Islamic society could pass an Algebra course? How many have taken algebra?

I was 1,500 miles away from home on 911. I called family and friends that night to check in. My father was 84 years old at the time and he just said "It looks like we are in World War III".

Was he right? Hard to say but when I see news article say "we have to worry about the reaction in the Muslim world", I wonder why the Muslims never express concern about the reaction in the Christian world wherever that might be.

The Beck Rally: "Palin will be joining Beck at his Dena'ina Center speaking engagement in Anchorage at 8 p.m. “I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will “never forget,”’ Palin wrote on her Facebook page. Tickets for the Beck event range from $73.75 to $225."

[...]

"There are also anti-Palin and Beck rallies scheduled for 11 a.m. at the Anchorage park strip and that night at the Dena'ina Center."

Cute. Your fellow Libtards are holding a counter-protest of a 9-11 memorial event.

I remember the frightening effect 9/11 had on the young people. My nephew, then 12-years-old, called me moments after the first images began appearing on television. He wanted to know what was happening.

My husband's cousin was 12 then, too. The worst thing for him was the jumpers. His religious upbringing had taught him that suicide was a sin, and his young mind was stuck on the idea that these folks had jumped from the hellish inferno to actual, literal, Hell.

His family explained to him that God would understand their choice in that situation, and I hope he understood that. But it was hard.

Was he right? Hard to say but when I see news article say "we have to worry about the reaction in the Muslim world", I wonder why the Muslims never express concern about the reaction in the Christian world wherever that might be.

Yes. I think so.

You never know that you are actually IN a situation until you are well into it. Like a crumbling marriage, you don't realize that the relationship is unsalvageable until it is well beyond being saved.

The politicians and those on the left want to squeeze their eyes shut and wish it all away. Hoping that appeasement (Chamberlain anyone) will solve the problem, avert the inevitable.

We are at war and our government, elitists academics, leftists refuse to see it or admit it. They just don't want to drain the swamp and soon the alligators will be so aggressive that it will be too late.

Fen, wow, a counter-protest to a memorial. That's some intense hatred there.

Garage, for crying out loud, if you don't like it, don't pay it. It's a free country and every person who paid did so by their own choice. I'm sure it costs a medium sized fortune to put this sort of thing together (in security alone, given the intensity of the hatred some Americans have for the speakers); I'd be pretty shocked if they're really making a profit here.

College students talk about how the attack shaped their lives - Noonan, Sept 11th 2009.

It was a life-splitting event. Before it they were carefree, after they were careful. A 20-year-old junior told me that after 9/11, "a backpack on a subway was no longer a backpack," and a crowded theater was "a source for concern." Every one of them used the word "bubble": the protected bubble of their childhood "popped." And all of them said they spent 9/11 and the days after glued to the television, watching over and over again the footage—the north tower being hit by the plane, the fireball. The video of 9/11 has firmly and ineradicably entered their brains. Which is to say their first visual memory of America, or their first media memory, was of its towers falling down.

So who hates America again? Why would you even want to live here if you think there is a substantial portion of the population living here that wished the destruction were on a much more massive scale? Christ, according to Plain, NYC isn't even part of Real America" to begin with, and conservatives have always hated the city. That's why the rally is thousands of miles away from Ground Zero. 9/11 has always been shamelessly exploited by the right in this country, to the point I don't even know what they would do without it.

So who hates America again? Why would you even want to live here if...

Hey buddy don't go all Ritmo on me. I was born here, just like you (I presume). I grew around Madison and know people like you inside and out. I know what makes you tick, what ticks you off, and where you draw your lines.

For many of us, the world changed that day, and things never will be the same.

We realized that we were at war. Indeed, we realized that we had always been at war and just didn't know it.

And what with the "moderate" Muslim near universal reaction being not horror and repudiation, but "don't blame us, we didn't do it," that only added to our stunned dawning realization that the world had changed.

And, despite some folks patting themselves on the back, saying that we (meaning they) were all rallying together, we suspected that it would only be a matter of time (like about as long as it takes for us to actually do something in response) before they would turn and somehow blame this on America, the American people, the West, Bush and Cheney, etc. And they did. And they do. We made them do it, don't you see? We made Muslims hate us, we built up Osama bin Laden from scratch.

The world changed, but not for some. They'll never change. And they'll never bring hope.

"Three hundred firemen. This is the part that reorders your mind when you think of it. For most of the 5,000 dead were there--they just happened to be there, in the buildings, at their desks or selling coffee or returning e-mail. But the 300 didn't happen to be there, they went there. In the now-famous phrase, they ran into the burning building and not out of the burning building. They ran up the stairs, not down, they went into it and not out of it. They didn't flee, they charged. It was just before 9 a.m. and the shift was changing, but the outgoing shift raced to the towers and the incoming shift raced with them. That's one reason so many were there so quickly, and the losses were so heavy. Because no one went home. They all came."

Fen's Noonan article: It was a life-splitting event. Before it they were carefree, after they were careful.

I was 21, and married, so I was certainly a bit older than the kids she's focusing on here. My first memories of America involve President Reagan, space shuttles, and Berlin Walls.

And yet, this "life-splitting," I believe, descibes me, too. I was a college student during several important national events.

First, the Clinton impeachment- irritating, but silly. It involved blow job jokes and was late night television fodder. Second was the 2000 election contest- a bit more serious, but besot with idiotic FL voters and hanging chads and other nonsense. National politics still looked like a joke, then.

Then, this happened. National politics wasn't a joke anymore. Being American wasn't just a nice but tiny part of my existence. I thought about life, about family, about freedom. I thought about all of the things I took for granted. I rememer life before 9/11. Things changed for me. They haven't, and won't, change back.

Put me down with those who got into blogs and alternative news sources after 9/11.

I'd argued with leftists on the internet (god I hate calling them Liberals) for years prior to 9/11, and I knew most of them to be self-loathers, but I had no idea how much leftists despised America (ultimately themselves) until 9/11.

I had always considered the media to be heavily biased toward the left, but the follow-on coverage is what finally drove me away from the MSM. I remember thinking at the time that my opinion was a small minority. I'm so glad to see that there was an entire world out there that felt the same way.

It's really the only good I take away from 9/11. It woke up the old "silent majority" and things have been snowballing since.

We, as a nation, have lost our ability to wage war. we have somehow gotten this notion that we are noble and above the barbarism of the past. There was no "collateral damage" in World War II. That is a modern concept.

If we are to succeed in our attempt to rid our lives of these extremists, we must be ruthless. Maybe a couple of thousand villages throughout the Muslim world need to be leveled before the "moderate" Muslims throw the extremists out of the rest of the villages. People will only act against their self interest if it is for self-preservation. We give them no reason to believe their actions have negative consequences. There were thousands (literally) of celebrations throughout the Muslim world today. I don't think that would happen again if tomorrow each town which had a celebration was wiped off the map. We waste money and lives with these police actions such as Iraq and Afghanistan. No different than Korea and Vietnam, except these people are hopelessly outclassed militarily where the N. Koreans and Viet Cong were not. They will not accomplish a thing.We need to have a credible and appreciated deterrence as we did in the cold war. In 44 years, the Russians never crossed the lines we drew. They thought we might actually respond as we threatened.Most Muslims do not wish to die for the extremists' cause. We just need to find a way to remind them of that.

"The truth is that the threat existed for years before 9/11, and not just from al-Qaeda. We saw an increasing number of attacks between the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and 9/11, mainly abroad, that we just chose not to consider seriously as a rising threat. People may want to blame Bill Clinton for that, but before 9/11, there would have been little support from anyone for a military expedition to Afghanistan or Sudan or Somalia to wipe out Osama bin Laden, and honest people will acknowledge that. As a nation, we simply didn’t think it would amount to a serious threat, and 9/11 changed that forever.

So what do we do now? What do the next nine years look like from this vantage point? Terrorism has ceased being the top priority of Americans, who are more worried now about the economy and jobs — as it should be. We should go about our business, but with the clarity that while we don’t want to arrange our public lives around terrorism forever, we need to keep the danger in mind as we conduct that business. Recent attack attempts remind us of the potential cost of complacency, but we no longer have the luxury of indulging in sheer ignorance as we did through September 10th, 2001."

Last night I turned on Hardball to see Chris Matthews and David Corn attack Newt Gingrich for his recently released video.

The thrust of the argument in introducing the video was that Gingrich is a radical for pushing the idea the Left is avoiding discussion of true threat of Islamism. Then Matthews said, "there are some images in this video of the 9/11 attacks that we won't show". So, in effect, wasn't he making Gingrich's point for him? The Left refuses to show us the attacks of 9/11 because they're afraid it might lead us to hold Islamists responsible for their actions.

Some will say that Beck is making the move to donate his speaking fee as a way of diluting criticism. But the full statement from Beck’s representative suggests otherwise:

Glenn had always intended to donate the speaking fee from the event on Saturday, September 11th in Alaska to Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Governor Palin is not and was never going to receive a fee for introducing Glenn at this event.

Then I turned on MSNBC this morning to see a discussion with Doris Kearns Goodwin. She was going on and on about how unified we were after the attacks and, not until this year, did she see this unity fall apart. She specifically mentioned that this Islamphobia we're seeing rear its ugly head is so divisive.

She then went on to talk about how Bush missed an opportunity to unite the country after 9/11 through the creation of a civilian corps of volunteers and a bigger army. Although I agree with her about the latter, something tells me the Left in this country would have had no appetite for investing 10% of GDP in the military - 1) because that money would be better spend on pre-K programs and 2) because the Left would never let a huge military do anything to protect this country on the battlefield.

"They may seek to spark conflict between different faiths, but as Americans we are not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam. It was not a religion that attacked us that September day -- it was al Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion." - BHO

We were on a short vacation at Glenwood Springs in Colorado. I felt that everything had changed, but I worried that we would do what we later did, let politics divide us and political correctness undermine our resolve to stand up for our principles of freedom and standing up to its enemies.

Jason is dead wrong.

As I read more about Islam, the Arab mind, and the history of the revival of fundamentalism and the quest for a new Caliphate (to include Cordoba) that more I felt that this would be a long struggle against a more difficult enemy than the Soviets. Unless we approach it that way with resolve and consistency it will continue to fester and weaken us.

Beth said: "Apparently it's bad form to point out Beck and Palin's crassness, not bad form for Beck and Palin to be cashing in on 9/11 so crassly.

I'm glad we cleared that up. It would be ugly to mar this day with crassness."

Beth, I am sure you are a nice lady. This not the day, nor the thread for for your style of writing/thinking/cheap shots. Please take this crap elsewhere- at least for today. You can resume your lack of class tomorrow.Thank you

I have been paying attention. America is weighing itself down with all sorts of regulations and rules, but it's nothing that can't be reversed, and it's nothing that wasn't going on before 9-11.

9-11 was not historically important precisely because we didn't listen to the people who wanted to "nuke" everything. We kept our heads and didn't let ourselves be controlled by our emotions. That is how you win wars. I credit George Bush for setting the mood.

The people who want to burn Korans and kill Muslims out of revenge, are only good for getting themselves and our own soldiers killed. I don't think they would last 10 days as a general.

Jason: We kept our heads and didn't let ourselves be controlled by our emotions. That is how you win wars. I credit George Bush for setting the mood.

It's not often I will praise Bush, but I agree with Jason here (and about the so-called "police state"). In the days and weeks after 9/11, things could have gone very differently across this country and I'll give Bush a lot of credit for that.

Beth If I may offer one last suggestion.....there is an 8 minute video (on Newsbusters.org) showing the two world trade center buildings getting hit. I watched it this morning. It had a profound effect on me. I suggest you watch it before commenting further.

My husband's cousin was 12 then, too. The worst thing for him was the jumpers.

I feel for your nephew. I had nightmares about the jumpers for weeks after, and I was 39 at the time. I had worked in one of the WTC towers in the early 90s, so it hit close to home. The thought of the unimaginable horror those people faced on 9/11- in the WTC, in the planes, in the Pentagon- demands that I remember, even if just for a moment to pay respects to the dead.

For a lot of people this event was personal; they were witnesses; it changed them. They couldn't forget, even if they wanted to.

For others this anniversary is an opportunity to bash those they disagree with. How nice for them.

I dreamed that one had died in a strange placeNear no accustomed hand,And they had nailed the boards above her face,The peasants of that land,Wondering to lay her in that solitude,And raised above her moundA cross they had made out of two bits of wood,And planted cypress round;And left her to the indifferent stars aboveUntil I carved these words:She was more beautiful than thy first love,But now lies under boards.(William Butler Yeats)

In early September of 2001, I was preparing to go back to college after several years in the workforce. On the morning of September 11th, I received a fat packet from the university I planned on attending.

I didn't actually open it until two days later, and by that point it didn't matter; I'd already decided that I was going to join the Army.

A year later, after researching my options and putting my affairs in order, I enlisted. I had to wait a few months for my slot. By January of 2003, I was on my way to Fort Benning, Georgia.

On balance, my time in the Army was "good". I did good works that I am proud of, I made tough decisions about the direction of my life, and I made several close friendships that I maintain to this day.

Not to get all emo and shit, but that's a little hard for me, knowing that so many good things in my life wouldn't have happened if barbaric savages hadn't murdered thousands of people in cold blood.

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears, IWanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were balesTorn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.By the smoking sea, where Christ walked, I asked, whyShould a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breathRebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,Blessing the death and the baptism by fire. (Derek Walcott)

People like Garage and Cookie would shit in their own mothers mouths just so they could shut them up to make their inane points. Garage, what are you trying to prove, hmmm? That you can't observe a moment of solemnity when your country was attacked by injecting needless invective so you can look like nothing more than a cunty douche because you don't like Beck or Palin. Moron, we get it. Here is a brownie point for your enfeebled efforts.

And Cookie, I read your moronic treatise on the 'duties' of what you think a citizen should be and frankly, it's pathetic, disgusting, and if I had the power, I'd eject you from this country and strip you of its citizenship, never to return. You aren't fit to be called an American, and you are even less fit to be called a human being. You are traitorous filth and your idiotic dogma only shows to prove that the brand of evil you espouse is an insidious multi-tentacled creature and your infected with it.

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief: Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.(William Cullen Bryant)

Yes, I discovered blogs after that day and stopped watching the news. The first blog I really liked was Megan McArdle's Asymetrical Information. Now Althouse is number one and McArdle is second for me.

Since that day I've retired, lost 40 pounds, and developed a passion for the great outdoors.

I am sad for the world's one billion Muslims, especially the Arabs who would rather nurse their grievances than join the rational world. I'm also sad for those westerners who still cling to religion. We must not allow these people to prevail.

I was a liberal Democrat on September 10, 2001. Since then I've lost faith in the Democrats. Their politics consists of talking about new or expanded government programs, anything but protecting our civilization. I'll never have faith in conservative Republicans who rely on and promote the same fears that motivated vicious attacks on the Irish Catholic immigrants who were my ancestors.

9/11 didn't hit home with me until I called my broker, whose office had a direct view of downtown Manhattan, and he burst into tears.

I was paralyzed all day long. In shock knowing that people I had spoken to (on the bond trading desks) just days ago; people that I had shared jokes with over the years, were now dead and had died in a horrific fashion. Died for no reason other than some Muslim fanatics don't like our lifestyle or our country.

Good people died that day, families were destroyed and people....excuse me ....scum like garage, cook and beth want to score political points and point out how terrible America is, how terrible conservatives are. Because they don't like Beck, Palin and God knows who else, they reflexively shit all over the memories of people who were shaken to the core by the destruction of the Twin Towers, the devastation at the Pentagon and the sacrifice of the passengers on flight 93.

Just when you think that people can't sink any lower and you are willing to deal with differences of opinion about politics, you are proven wrong.

I am sad for the world's one billion Muslims, especially the Arabs who would rather nurse their grievances than join the rational world.

I'll never have faith in conservative Republicans who rely on and promote the same fears that motivated vicious attacks on the Irish Catholic immigrants who were my ancestors.

These are contradictory statements. You are sad for Muslims for their irrational grievances about and against the world and yet you display grievances against conservatives for attacks against Irish Catholic immigrants who were your ancestors. Your train of thought is baffling. Understandable, considering your leftard views as of 2001 might be having a lingering and possibly lasting effect on ones rational thinking process.

I remember the same thing. I was on my way to work in Westchester County, NY and was flipping back and forth between a CD and NPR. I remember hearing that Massoud had been killed and, for some reason, thought - oh, this is really bad news. It was right about then that the first plane was heading south about 5 miles to the west of me on its way to the north tower.

Standing in the coldwith those who knew you morethose I know who wear the badgewho fight the fight you foughtbeing there for all of usin the streets, out in the darker placesthe trying places in our landour city, our neighborhoods

Knowing where you fell, how close to homehow near we all are to chaoshow separate we let ourselves bewhen we are still so connected

Seeing you, your flagthe fallen oneechoes of your life

Watching your comrades, your brethrenthe thin blue line, stretching down the streetpast the station in front of me,row on row of men and womenon and on they cameto pay respect, tribute, honor

Those who risk all for useach day, each shift, each step on the beat, into the breachdark places wherewe would not go(Raymond A Foss)

Well, it's nice to know that some people's calls for reflection and solemnity for one day end upon witnessing the act of calling out (calling off?) war profiteering.

This is obviously one of the biggest issues that divide right and left. At some point, money is an obscene variable to introduce into issues that matter to the body politic. Why can't certain people acknowledge that?

Reflection and solemnity: For the war profiteers too. They're just good, decent Americans not seeking to exploit this for political, partisan gain. Or at least, so say their co-partisans.

I think the offense taken at that says something in itself - as do the ugly personal insults that are suddenly respectable today (calls for solemnity and reflection notwithstanding) when thrown across the partisan divide.

One side claims the other is exploiting events of nine years ago, the other claims they abetted it. No wonder the country can't move forward.

WHY should I blame her that she filled my daysWith misery, or that she would of lateHave taught to ignorant men most violent ways,Or hurled the little streets upon the great.Had they but courage equal to desire?What could have made her peaceful with a mindThat nobleness made simple as a fire,With beauty like a tightened bow, a kindThat is not natural in an age like this,Being high and solitary and most stern?Why, what could she have done, being what she is?Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Yeats, No Second Troy.

In modern vernacular, 'haters gonna hate'.

Yeat's poem isn't exactly applicable to 9/11, but there is a core understanding within those words that resonates.

The fire that fuels, also burns.

The United States as lead firefighter in a world of arsonists makes us a target. That there haven't been any spectacular successes for the haters on our soil since then, says something about how amazingly good we are at that task.

Then Matthews said, "there are some images in this video of the 9/11 attacks that we won't show". So, in effect, wasn't he making Gingrich's point for him? The Left refuses to show us the attacks of 9/11 because they're afraid it might lead us to hold Islamists responsible for their actions.

No, Rialby. I think it had to do with a matter of taste. Some people get the point of what a graphic image conveys without having to trace the outline of the memory that it seared over and over again.

For those that don't, we have the kind of war porn that motivates the audiences al Jazeera when broadcasting atrocities committed against U.S. troops. And then, I suppose, there's 9/11 porn for the traditionalists at home.

At some point, the point isn't to fixate on an image but to talk about what meaning you take from the event behind it. Unless, of course, deriving meaning from things isn't something one is capable of.

I don't know which direction you believe I wish to take the country in (you rarely if ever bother to correctly identify my position on anything), but I do know that the religious wars of the 11th and 12th centuries don't seem very forward-thinking historical prospects to me.

Anglelyne, that made me literally sick to my stomach, which is not a complaint that I throw around lightly. I did and do denounce the crazy FL preacher, but I'll be damned if I EVER associate with women who would voluntarily, and for no other reason than "definance," take upon herself the same subjugation that the monsters who took down our towers would force upon every one of us.

I don't understand why people would get caught up in hijabs. The point is condoning political violence. Some parts of the world don't understand that political violence is beyond the pale of America's culture, and will be beyond the pale of America's culture until that standard becomes the undisputed legacy of civilization as it is universally understood. All of these other things regarding what allegedly is or is not particular to Islam may be salient, but are more often than not incidental.

Move forward to greater Dhimmitude status, greater Islamization, greater appeasement of the Jhidist interests, more rapid surrender to demands for the spread and implementation of Sharia law? THAT kind of forward movement, Ritmo? Move forward by surrender to demands for special treatment for Muslims? e.g., public footbaths at taxpayer expense, etc. Giving Arab/Islamic history a favored gloss while denigrating the values of the Christian West on the NY Board of Regents exams. THAT sort of thing, Ritmo? By having the POTUS sic the FBI and the SecDef on a Fla preacher exercising his Constitutional rights while simultaneously defending the rights of Muslims to build the Cordoba Mosque in NYC even as he labels its opponents as bigots and "fringe extremists"--all 70% of the American public. Like THAT, Ritmo?

Btw, Ritmo, I loved how you equated radical Islamists with "traditionalists" here in America. I appreciate that you always have time to mentally masturbate to the image of Glenn Beck in a turban dontchaknow. American Taliban!!!!

Like you always say, if you're not with the International Left, you're with the terrorists.

No one here is advocating any of that, Virgil Xenophon, but the frequency of ridiculous charges and unrelated events that you throw up in the air like that leads me to believe that you're just frenzied enough to avoid making a sane case for what the country should be doing about our management of a terror war.

Btw, Ritmo, I loved how you equated radical Islamists with "traditionalists" here in America. I appreciate that you always have time to mentally masturbate to the image of Glenn Beck in a turban dontchaknow. American Taliban!!!!

Like you always say, if you're not with the International Left, you're with the terrorists.

There are traditional, radical elements in both the West and the Middle East and there are liberal and progressive elements in both the West and the Middle East.

Apart from that, the societies differ in many other, and more important ways.

I just don't want the traditionalists here to stifle the would-be reformers there or our efforts to cultivate and engage them any more than I want the radical retrograde Mohammedans threatening the conservatives of America and the West with violence. Or anyone else that lives here for that matter.

lyssaLR: I did and do denounce the crazy FL preacher, but I'll be damned if I EVER associate with women who would voluntarily, and for no other reason than "definance," take upon herself the same subjugation that the monsters who took down our towers would force upon every one of us.

I sincerely doubt she thinks it through that far, lyssa. I know the type. She's engaged in a silly little status-posturing game with her equally ignorant and fluffy-minded circle of friends.

I do have to hold my nose at such types taking on the mantle of "courage" for themselves, for doing something that puts them at no risk whatever. "Yes, it will take some courage to make this gesture", she sniffs, and strikes a noble pose. Yeah, you bad, lady. Somebody might snicker or sneer at your posturing silly-ass self, oh the humanity.

Via The Right Coast blog: The NamesBy Billy Collins06 September 2002, New York

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,Then Baxter and Calabro,Davis and Eberling, names falling into placeAs droplets fell through the dark.Names printed on the ceiling of the night.Names slipping around a watery bend.Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.In the morning, I walked out barefootAmong thousands of flowersHeavy with dew like the eyes of tears,And each had a name—Fiori inscribed on a yellow petalThen Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.Names written in the airAnd stitched into the cloth of the day.A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.Monogram on a torn shirt,I see you spelled out on storefront windowsAnd on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.I say the syllables as I turn a corner—Kelly and Lee,Medina, Nardella, and O’Connor.When I peer into the woods,I see a thick tangle where letters are hiddenAs in a puzzle concocted for children.Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.Names written in the pale sky.Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.Names silent in stoneOr cried out behind a door.Names blown over the earth and out to sea.In the evening—weakening light, the last swallows.A boy on a lake lifts his oars.A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,And the names are outlined on the rose clouds—Vanacore and Wallace,(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.Names etched on the head of a pin.One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.A blue name needled into the skin.Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.Alphabet of names in a green field.Names in the small tracks of birds.Names lifted from a hatOr balanced on the tip of the tongue.Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.

"Three hundred firemen. This is the part that reorders your mind when you think of it.

nice piece by Noonan. I found it interesting that the 343 firefighters that died were all men. As PC as NYC is, you'd have thought that there would have been a woman among them. But then again, feminists fight those PT tests that consist of running up 10 stories of stairs carring 50 feet of 2.5 inch hose line. "they are not realistic...." tell that to the 300 men went up the stairs into hell.

No 9/11 can pass without remembering one of the great hero's of that awful day Col(r) Rick Rescorla

a hero of the Ia Drang fight featured in "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young", Rick was born a Cornishman. On 9/11 he was security chief of Morgan Stanley that had 10 floors of WTC2.

(against instructions from the port authority to shelter in place)

"I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,' " Rescorla replied. "Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it's going to take the whole building with it. I'm getting my people the fuck out of here."

as he evacuated his troops from wtc2 , he sang "Men of Harlech" to the staff and kept saying that this day made him proud to be an American....

Of the 2700 Morgan Stanley staff, all but 6 got out. 4 of the 6 were Rick and 3 of this staff.

I was working in Saudi Arabia the day it happened - most of the crew had been up all night - we had just achieved production from a new facility early that morning - so most people were up later in the morning there. As the news begin to filter in - a real shock hit the office, and things got quiet.

One of the Saudis there was very agitated and I asked him what was the matter. He had seen the pictures on TV and was terrified about the Japanese contractor working on our job. I asked him, "What?". And he said, "But the Japanese are the only ones that do suicide planes, right?". I just turned and bit my lip.

The denial that there is a problem with the culture in that part of the world that continuously spawns these monsters is always there. It is under their nose, but they can't see it. It is always someone else, or a "plot" to make them look bad. Never a flaw in belief.

And the same thing is true today on our side. We do not have the intellectual honesty to even name our enemy in the guise of tolerance. To name and isolate the radical part of that creed that pushes the totalitarian theocratic line. Until we gather the courage to call it out - and start using more ideology than military hardware to fight it, we are just stumbling in the dark.

By the time 9/11 came I got most of my real news there. I read about Massoud being killed and thought "...that can't be good..." (We had lived in the east, and had hosted some Afghan kids who went to school out of the country, so it was on my radar.)

On September 11, 2001 an older friend of mine, a retired scientist of some repute, took a taxi with his lady friend from Manhattan to Newark to the airport where he said good-bye to her as she headed off to the west coast. They were planning on going to Europe together later in the fall.

When he got back to his apartment in Manhattan he found all hell had broken loose downtown.

And then came the news of the Pentagon. And then came the news of United Flight 93, Newark to San Francisco ....

When I saw him the following fall for lunch he apologized for the tremor in his hands. He looked out the window and said it started September 11. His grief was still palpable.

This, a man who was one of the first enlisted men to come across the horrors of a concentration camp near the end of WW II. He showed us some pictures he had kept from being confiscated.

And now the inexplicable horror came again to him more than 55 years later.

I called him on September 11 for a couple years to tell him I remembered. He has since died, but my heart was broken for this good man who lost his love.

And for the others -- please know there are many of us who have not forgotten.

And do not lose sight that the intent was to kill many thousands more.

You're like a breath of fresh air on this thread, much like I imagine Hall & Oates "Rich Girl: played at a loved one's funeral to be. While gazing into the abyss, the sorrow and the loss...it's good to be reminded of the important things.

Much like you, Hall & Oates can be deep thinkers, and the lyrics of "Rich Girl" reflect this wonderfully (especially regarding profiteering and matters of the heart, which is apparently the only barrier preventing you from expressing your own sorrow here today):

Fen -In the now-famous phrase, they ran into the burning building and not out of the burning building. They ran up the stairs, not down, they went into it and not out of it. They didn't flee, they charged. It was just before 9 a.m. and the shift was changing, but the outgoing shift raced to the towers and the incoming shift raced with them. That's one reason so many were there so quickly, and the losses were so heavy. Because no one went home. They all came."

I have been a volunteer firefighter and am ex-military. One thing people have an extraordinary hard time of is because they cannot see themselves doing a dangerous job, they therefore assume all who do are "Heroes". Hero teachers in the ghetto, hero Army radar operators and cooks, hero Alaskan fishermen, hero coal miners, all cops are heroes. etc., etc.

It is not work for fainting hearts, but each of these jobs, plus any military Draft - does not weed out 1,000 applicants to find the One True Hero.

The other problem is that part of what the media and members of the public call "heroism" was a breakdown of command and control in the firefighters that is now part of training in the firefighter community. We have always been taught that not following orders kills, and 9/11 unfortunately is now the biggest example.What happened was that going off-shift crews and crews from adjacent Boroughs were told to standby and maintain a tactical reserve and not go to the WTC. Many crews caught up in the excitement disregarded those orders and went so they would "not miss out on the action". Additionally, several dozen firefighters ignored police orders to evacuate on City and police incident commander's instructionsafter the 1st Tower collapsed - arguing they had a "duty" to not run.

In post 9/11 training, while the bravery and skill of the NYPD was always extolled and the "needed lessons learned" were taught as almost a painful sacriledge - the word was that 40-45% of the firefighters who died were those who had gone against orders not to go there or orders to evacuate.

There were 343 firefighters from NYFD killed and only 23 police from NYPD killed, and in large part it was police, there in equal numbers, maintained full working discipline and command throughout the day.

We can always honor people doing risky jobs and not diminish their losses - but we also have to see what can change to lower the number of deaths in similar circumstances.The charge of the 1st Newfoundland at the Somme in WWI, men trained to be brave in doing their duty and whose sacrifice is deeply honored...were nontheless massacred by bad planning, bad officering, and bad squad responses...780 men who went forward only 68 were available for roll call the following day.The carnage inflicted on the Newfoundlanders and others on the Brit side forced profound changes after the start of the Somme battle - even as the "heroes mourning and burial with honor" was underway.

From his apartment, William Basinski filmed the smoke pouring from the site. He had been trying to salvage some of his old music tapes, but they had physically deteriorated to the point that they slowly fell apart while being played. He made a loop of the decaying tape and played it against the film, a sort of a requiem for the twin towers.

On September 11th I was on my roof in Brooklyn, lessthan 1 nautical mile from the World Trade Center, ourbeacon, our compass: that which towered so far aboveevery other skyscraper in NYC, my nightlight. Myneighbors and I witnessed the end of the world as weknew it that day. We saw those towering structurescollapse before our very eyes, on a crystal clear daywe saw the incomprehensible change of landscape: likea volcano disappearing behind trees. We wereappalled. Despite the catastrophic fires, we had noidea that these gigantic structures wouldcollapse?cascade below the lower Manhattan skyline. But it happened. We were in shock. We sat on theroof terrace in lawn chairs and watched the firesburning all day into night with the DisintegrationLoops playing in the background. The human scale ofthe catastrophe we couldn?t even comprehend at thetime. That would come next, in tears and agony. Thiswas the end of the world we all knew was coming sooneror later, but had forgotten about/put in the back ofour minds. That evening I recorded on video thestatic image of the lower Manhattan skyline billowingsmoke as the last hour of daylight turned to darkness. This film is entitled Disintegration Loop 1.1 and isdedicated to the memory of those who perished in theatrocities of September 11th, 2001."

And realizing American hadn't grasped the propaganda value the NYT proceeded to create some.

A failure to recognize the difference between news and propaganda has sadly become a hallmark of the right wing.

The purpose of the NYT is to inform American audiences, not Middle Eastern audiences. In case you hadn't noticed, it's actually published in the English language - the same language in which the functions of American government and American businesses are conducted, and not in Arabic. If others see propaganda in what Americans rightly find newsworthy, what should America do? Conform to Middle Eastern standards? Become like our enemies? Change what is newsworthy to us to be defined as propaganda simply because other societies can find propaganda value in it?

Sadly, the right wing seems to think so.

The purpose of being American is not to change our values (freedom of press and information being one of them) in order to accommodate others. If it were, why don't you go ahead and condone terrorism?

What you are advocating sounds like multiculturalism - that other right-wing bugbear - of merely a different variety. You would berate embracing other cultures' achievements, but seem to want to embrace their detriments.

There was a time when I wanted to be a fireman. Half my friends became fireman, boys who grew up to become men. Boys I remember, men I respect. Then came 9/11:

O'Firefight

I glimpsed a scene beyond comprehension, let me explain.

It was a photograph exceeding Dante's painted hell, and only spirits know how a shutter opened, then closed. Yet, upon seeing the result, I was yanked into a still-life to witness what at least one living man saw.

There he was, O'Firefight, upright, all alone in the middle of falling ash and hellish rubble. Yet, more than that, it was his physical attitude that struck me like a falling beam.

T-shirt, suspenders, fire-hat, horizontal axe in hand, body leaning forward, one man, one infinitesimal speck, facing the first tower down, the second barely standing. The orange-gray filling in all around him could not be recreated from a million colors mixed in a million baths. Near his feet, fire hoses, flat, leading the way under the crushing steelscape straight into hell.

One fireman, alone, brave by nature, present by duty, paused, repulsed by the immensity of the scene ripped open before him, its incomprehensible scale; looking up, looking out... all is lost, but him, and him.

Before the war, I once stood at the base of the World Trade Center looking up. Then, from the roof, I looked down. When I viewed the photograph recalled above, I remembered the time I looked up, dizzy, and then looked down, awestruck. Only gods go higher while standing on earth.

Anyway, I will try to tone down the anger. There is actually something else going on today that I have become quite angry about, and don't wish that to get in the way of the somber or appropriately reflective mood that others are attempting to maintain. There are strong perspectives of national definition that come out of 9/11, and the memories of the events of the day, of the victims and of the survivors should be at the forefront of that.

"They respect strength. We should have nuked Medina and held Mecca hostage to another nuke if they didn't submit."

Every time I see Mecca I think of something like this. Like all religions, to some degree, Islam is a form of fanaticism. Like the Japanese during WWII, killing them - or waiting until they kill more of us - is our only option. They can't be reasoned with.

The torturous soul-searching Liberals try to keep us engaged in, on this issue, is unnecessary. We are good people. But war is war, and we fight them to win; anything less is appeasement. Those who don't understand this have, obviously, never had to fight for their lives. But they will.

Eliott A said... We, as a nation, have lost our ability to wage war. we have somehow gotten this notion that we are noble and above the barbarism of the past...............If we are to succeed in our attempt to rid our lives of these extremists, we must be ruthless. Maybe a couple of thousand villages throughout the Muslim world need to be leveled before the "moderate" Muslims throw the extremists out of the rest of the villages. People will only act against their self interest if it is for self-preservation. We give them no reason to believe their actions have negative consequences. There were thousands (literally) of celebrations throughout the Muslim world today. I don't think that would happen again if tomorrow each town which had a celebration was wiped off the map. We waste money and lives with these police actions such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

That seems to be pretty accurate. About the only thing that impressed the Islamoids was the kinetic phase of the Afghan and Iraq War where we could destroy anything we saw with speed, effectiveness, and relative impunity.

They are not impressed at all with our Constitution and consider it a laugh rather than some universalist "sacred parchment" of wisdom. They don't need to be "educated" in womens rights, how wonderful Israel is, how dazzling democracy and unchecked Freedom!!! are - they know what all those things are, what our policies are and feel they suck and the best way to resist is to kill and blow up things.

Our Jewish progressive lawyers and media fawning over terrorists rights doesn't make them any less likely to do assymetric warfare. They know they can buy cheap Chinese stuff as easily as we can, so there is nothing to look to in the West they cannot get elsewhere. They laugh at the idea that assymetric warfare is a law enforcement matter...most Muslims will say the radicals are misguided...but also that they violate no Sharia laws that flag an anti-Western jihadi as a regular criminal. Most believe that terrorists go to Heaven if they die in Jihad, even if they WERE misguided.

The "hearts and minds" phase is also a trillion dollar joke. The Right worships the Great and Almighty General Petraeus and celebrates his magnificent "Surge". But what was achieved? Was it a Victory? No. Any one over there will say that the lifespan of of an American without security, wandering around, is likely hours until death, or capture then death. Military warn that it may be decades before it is safe for an American to walk alone through Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen. That Iraq, now just full of noble Freedom-loving, purple-fingered voters - is a lethal environment for Westerners after Petraeus's "Surge Victory". (The same General who warns against pissing off any of the Muslims he is "fighting" - not kowtowing to Karzai and his drug traffickers"endangers the hero troops", saying mean things about Muslims here or burning their religious stuff "endangers the hero troops" and so on.

So we really haven't won anything. We spent a billion to give "noble Muslims" structures like "Constitutional Halls" and schools for girls...but still have lands Americans are unsafe to visit after 9 years, with "hero troops" dodging IEDs and snipers while handing out soccer balls and running about trying to find some evildoer sheltered by fellow Muslims.

This is not real war, this is bullshit war, with Petraeus another bullshit shoveler. We want to win? We win when we have a country like Afghanistan so cowed and suffering from levelled villages from crossing us that we can announce 100 Jewish tourists will have a peace march through the whole Pashtun land and they best not be touched or the only thing feasting will be wild dogs on Pashtun remains. When all 100 tourists make it, unescorted by security, THAT would be winning the war against radical Islamists

Maybe, instead of listening to Imam Rauf tell us that if we don't let him build the victory mosque at Ground Zero that Muslims will feel under attack and it will be "very, very, very" dangerous for us----

Maybe, instead of worrying about their sensitivities and what they will do next to try to kill us, maybe we should just turn Mecca into a parking lot.

It worked with Hiroshima, Dresden, Braunschweig, Kobe, Nagasaki, and Tokyo. And in truth, the world became a better place afterward.

RITMO, The the only anger I feel besides that that I feel towards the Jihidists-terrorists is the anger born out of frustration I feel towards suicidaly naive people like you regarding the nature of the theocratic cultural enemy we face in Islam.

RITMO, The the only anger I feel besides that that I feel towards the Jihidists-terrorists is the anger born out of frustration I feel towards suicidaly naive people like you regarding the nature of the theocratic cultural enemy we face in Islam.

Sigh.

Oh well. So much for American unity. So much for reflection. Dividing and conquering the country and polarizing its citizenry is apparently Virgil's (of Xenophon that is, lit. "foreign voice") objective today.

Now that I've addressed your emotional issues, Virgil, may I kindly proceed to the substance - assuming there is any? Namely, you call me "suicidally naive"? Please explain what I have said or done that makes me "suicidally naive".

@Cedarford, your post at 6:21 was very thoughtful. A couple of French documentary filmmakers were filming at a NYC firehouse near the WTC, and were out on a call with the crew when the first plane hit the towers (they caught it on tape) and consequently that crew were the first to reach the North Tower. The French filmmakers were there in the first floor of the North Tower lobby (but no higher) as the fire fighters went up. A fire fighter still in his probation period (a "probie") was left behind at the station house but nearly became their only casualty when a retiree came by the firehouse and ordered the probie to pull on his gear and join him. The retiree had no business being there, and the probie was violating orders. The people who followed orders lived, the probie who didn't, nearly died. There's a reason for orders.

I can draw a parallel between the US Army of the Vietnam War, in which I served, and today's American Army. The troops of my day were poorly disciplined -- I don't know how many we lost because they couldn't be bothered to follow orders, but the largest number of Lt. Col Moore's losses a LZ X-Ray were due to an overzealous officer who ignored Moore's orders and chased off after a small group of North Vietnamese soldiers -- falling into a trap.

And if you had managed to prevent yourself from the gratuitous slap at Jewish lawyers in your 7:10 post, there's a lot to agree with there, too. Do you seriously think all Jewish lawyers and only Jewish lawyers are caught up in left-wing self-delusion? You need to meet more goyishe lawyers, my friend.